Honestly-this is one of the truly great mysteries of my political life, and one that I can't entirely explain. Republicans didn't always feel this way. Theodore Roosevelt was one of the fathers of the modern conservation movement, and the EPA was actually created during the Nixon administration. But since the early 1990's, roughly around the fall of the Soviet Union, the Republican Party has turned its back on the environment, regularly demonizing green activists as nothing more than anti-job hippies. In the wake of Al Gore's move to the White House and the controversies surrounding the logging industry versus the northern spotted owl, environmental policy shifted from nuanced discussions to simple pro-environment and anti-environment, a startling policy shift for an issue that literally means whether you live or die.
Because, that, quite honestly, is where this issue will go. I think when Republicans think of the EPA they think of issues like the northern spotted owl, when a "liberal law" cost thousands of people their jobs (never mind the fact that environmentalism generally creates more jobs than it destroys, but facts get in the way of our prejudices), but the reality is much scarier than that. For starters, the EPA is charged with keeping our water and air safe. That doesn't happen just automatically-it's the result of scientists spending countless hours ensuring that the water that comes out of your faucet doesn't contain lead or that the lake your child swims in isn't a dumping ground for sewage. This is a direct result of EPA testing and monitoring, and it doesn't just happen-it's because of the EPA and congressional laws that they enforce. Take that away, and I hate to break it to you, but you could just as easily be drinking lead without any protections nor ramifications for those providing you the water nor any repercussions other than to vote for people who will bring back your environmental protection.
I am always struck by this article I wrote about last year when I think of things where people support eliminating something that keeps them alive. The article, about a woman whose husband literally would die without Obamacare but still voted for Donald Trump anyway, shows that we always assume that the side effects of our own politics won't affect us specifically. We want to believe in only the good of an issue, and assume that we can't be affected by the bad, but here the bad is so much worse than the bad of the other side of the coin, and it will almost certainly come to pass. Without the EPA, you could very easily die. So could every person you love. This sounds like hyperbole but it's just common sense. The reason we needed the EPA in the first place was to ensure that water was safe to drink and that the air we breathed didn't give us cancer. Yes, it did in fact protect the spotted owl, a fact we should appreciate (I don't think it's fair for us to support a business that is being largely phased out for a few more years and in the process destroy a thousands-of-years-old species that can literally never return), but it also ensures that you can go to any hotel in America (save, unfortunately, for one in Flint Michigan) and have a reasonable (and legal!) expectation of the water from your faucet being safe to drink. The EPA is a good organization, full stop. It is a vital part of our lives. The fact that Republicans don't see that-that they only see the bad and don't realize the impossibly large good is a terrifying fact, and one that is not exclusive to environmentalism and climate change. Look at everything from the anti-vaxxers to the birther movement, where common sense and established fact are made way for people to have opinions on things that are not debatable. Without the EPA, people will die. Without its protections, people will die. This is unfortunate, but it's why we have the damned thing in the first place. Support policies that help those affected by uncomfortable environmental realities, try to fight for more transparency in our environmental legislation, but don't eliminate (or effectively eliminate) the science behind the EPA. It's literally what's keeping you and your family and every other American alive. Don't let hubris lead to abject and dangerous stupidity.
Because, that, quite honestly, is where this issue will go. I think when Republicans think of the EPA they think of issues like the northern spotted owl, when a "liberal law" cost thousands of people their jobs (never mind the fact that environmentalism generally creates more jobs than it destroys, but facts get in the way of our prejudices), but the reality is much scarier than that. For starters, the EPA is charged with keeping our water and air safe. That doesn't happen just automatically-it's the result of scientists spending countless hours ensuring that the water that comes out of your faucet doesn't contain lead or that the lake your child swims in isn't a dumping ground for sewage. This is a direct result of EPA testing and monitoring, and it doesn't just happen-it's because of the EPA and congressional laws that they enforce. Take that away, and I hate to break it to you, but you could just as easily be drinking lead without any protections nor ramifications for those providing you the water nor any repercussions other than to vote for people who will bring back your environmental protection.
I am always struck by this article I wrote about last year when I think of things where people support eliminating something that keeps them alive. The article, about a woman whose husband literally would die without Obamacare but still voted for Donald Trump anyway, shows that we always assume that the side effects of our own politics won't affect us specifically. We want to believe in only the good of an issue, and assume that we can't be affected by the bad, but here the bad is so much worse than the bad of the other side of the coin, and it will almost certainly come to pass. Without the EPA, you could very easily die. So could every person you love. This sounds like hyperbole but it's just common sense. The reason we needed the EPA in the first place was to ensure that water was safe to drink and that the air we breathed didn't give us cancer. Yes, it did in fact protect the spotted owl, a fact we should appreciate (I don't think it's fair for us to support a business that is being largely phased out for a few more years and in the process destroy a thousands-of-years-old species that can literally never return), but it also ensures that you can go to any hotel in America (save, unfortunately, for one in Flint Michigan) and have a reasonable (and legal!) expectation of the water from your faucet being safe to drink. The EPA is a good organization, full stop. It is a vital part of our lives. The fact that Republicans don't see that-that they only see the bad and don't realize the impossibly large good is a terrifying fact, and one that is not exclusive to environmentalism and climate change. Look at everything from the anti-vaxxers to the birther movement, where common sense and established fact are made way for people to have opinions on things that are not debatable. Without the EPA, people will die. Without its protections, people will die. This is unfortunate, but it's why we have the damned thing in the first place. Support policies that help those affected by uncomfortable environmental realities, try to fight for more transparency in our environmental legislation, but don't eliminate (or effectively eliminate) the science behind the EPA. It's literally what's keeping you and your family and every other American alive. Don't let hubris lead to abject and dangerous stupidity.
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